Wikipedia:Peer review/Malaysia/archive3

Malaysia

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I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like fresh eyes on what needs to be done to improve it further, along the FA criteria. The main problem I can see right now is the length, it goes beyond the recommended limit. Advice on where to cut would be appreciated, should some subsections be summarised and merged with others or the main text, or perhaps some sections just need less information? Any other advice would of course also be very welcome.

Thanks, Chipmunkdavis (talk) 20:53, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this - it looks much better than it did the last time I peer reviewed it. Here are some suggestions for improvement with an eye to FAC - I will comment as I read through.

Tool box on this PR page finds two dab links that will need to be fixed.
No dead ELs, but several need access dates added (looked like mostly google books links)
I used the article size tool and it said: Prose size (text only): 51 kB (8145 words) "readable prose size" This is big, but not too bad, especially for such a large and diverse country.

Lead

Two sentences in a row starting with "it" probably would be commented on at FAC - could probably combine the two It consists of thirteen states and three federal territories and has a total landmass of 329,847 square kilometres (127,350 sq mi) separated by the South China Sea into two regions, Peninsular Malaysia and Malaysian Borneo.
The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. As such, nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself. However, the two bridges to Singapore is only in the lead (and is too much detail for the lead anyway).
My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way, even if it is only a word or phrase. I am not sure this is true here - I do not see any mention of the etymology / name in the lead, for example.
Problem sentence The population is over 27.5 million. - first off, the sentence should give the date of the population. Second, it seems odd to just say "over" a number.
Make it cleaer this is an annual figure Since independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with GDP growing an average 6.5% for almost 50 years.
I think of Malaysia as one of the biggest countries in terms of Islamic population, but except for it being in OIC, there is no mention of Islam in the lead.
In general when there are things that can change with time, I would give some sort of indication of the date. As of 2011 works, or since YEAR works. Avoid vague time terms like now or currently as they can become out of date quickly

Etymology

What does the Tamil word mean?
Why the out of chronological order discussion of names (English 1850 followed by French 1831, then the next paragraph is vague as to time too At that time, it was thought that the inhabitants of this region could be designated by the encompassing term "Malay"... Which time?
I expected Langkasuka to be mentioned in the history - if they considered naminmg the current nation after this kingdome, seems like it might be important enough to mention in History.

History

Watch WP:OVERLINKing - Malay Peninsula is linked twice in two sections
Think about antecedents - look at this example Traders and settlers from India and China arrived as early as the 1st century AD, establishing trading ports and towns in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. which is fillowed by Both had a strong influence on the local culture. What does Both refer to - traders and settlers? India and China? trading ports and towns? Even the 2nd and 3rd centuries?
History goes from 40,000 years ago to the 13th century in 5 sentences - might want a bit more detail.
History is fairly long - would subsections help?
Most difficult FA criterion for most articles to meet is 1a, a professional level of ENglish. Avoid passive voice where possible - for example the phrase ...with the lease of the island of Penang to the British East India Company by the sultan of Kedah... could be flipped to active pretty easily and tightened a bit in the bargain ... when the sultan of Kedah leased the island of Penang to the British East India Company... (is it important that Penang is an island?)
Most places have refs, but this does not not and needs one Sabah was governed as the crown colony of British North Borneo. In 1842, Sarawak was ceded by the Sultan of Brunei to James Brooke, whose successors ruled as the White Rajahs over an independent kingdom until 1946, when it became a British colony.
The whole History section seems to have gaps to me

Governance

I would say who the current Yang di-Pertuan Agong is (had to copy and paste that name!)
Between is for two, among is for more than two - see By informal agreement the position is systematically rotated between the nine.
Aren'tthe members elected to terms (and not the House itself)? The 222-member House of Representatives is elected for a maximum term of five years ...
Haven't clearly defined who/what the sultan is (and need to be consistent on capitalization in the whole article) . In each of the states with a hereditary ruler, the Chief Minister is required to be a Malay, appointed by the Sultan upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister.[50]
Awkward Federal elections are held concurrently with the elections of every state except Sarawak.[47]
I know he is shown in the picture, but I would say how long the current PM has served (PM since YEAR)
I would briefly define Bumiputera - I know it is linked, but I think it needs to be made clearer in the article too.

Foreign relations and military

Malaysia's foreign policy is based on the principle of neutrality and maintaining peaceful relations with all countries - but later it says except Israel (which it has no relation with)
Abbreviations should follow the full name on first use for ASEAN, etc.
More between confusion It involves joint military exercises held between the five countries.

Subdivisions

Could the names of the three federal territories be shwon explicily on the wikilinked map?
I would list the four states that have governors
Vague For some, the other areas of Malaysia are considered foreign countries under immigration laws.[88] Who are these people?

Geography

The infobox has an exact population as of the 2010 Census - I owuld use this throughout the article
Make sure sources used are reliable - what makes "Travel Times" a RS, for example?
I also see that Travel Times might have an author's name at the bottom of this article LEOW CHEAH WEI - if this is the author or editor (apologies if I misunderstood) then that name should be included in the ref.
I was surprised there was not more on Brunei being completely surrounded by Sarawak in this section.

Flora and fauna

Link endemism?
Awful sentence (and the previous sentence already said it was megadiverse): Its wildlife are some of the most diverse on earth,[93] and it being a Megadiverse country,[108] and the country includes some of the most biodiverse areas on the planet.
Copyedit needed Over 620 species of birds have been recorded just on the Peninsular.[109] Many are endemic to the mountains of the peninsular, and Bornean forests show high levels of endemism among bird species[93] with 38 species found nowhere else. Capitalization of Peninsular (and is it OK by itself) is an issue too
I assume this means the forests have covered what is now Malaysia for the past 130 million years (since no plants or animals are anywhere near that old). About two thirds of Malaysia is covered in forest[97] which is believed to be 130 million years old.[110]
I am only going to point out the worst problems from now on in the review. This needs a copyedit and some careful thought as to organization.

Economy

I really am not sure what this whoile sentence means or which years it refers to In 2007, the economy of Malaysia was the 3rd largest economy in Southeast Asia and 29th largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity with gross domestic product for 2008 of $222 billion,[123] with a growth rate of 5% to 7% since 2007.[124]

Demographics

Does the article really need two images of the Petronas Towers?

Religion

The figure at the top of this section is huge (spans the whole column) but adds nothing that is not already in the text. I owuld at least make it a much smaller table and perhaps remove it
MOS says not to start a sentence with numbers as in 0.8% reported having no religion, and the remaining 1.5% practised another religion or did not provide any information. There are several sentences with this problem throughout the article

Sports

WHat does this mean / why is this sentence here? The 1998 Commonwealth Games were the first time the torch relay went through more nations than just England and the host.[212] How is this related to Maylasia?
I am out of gas on this article - hope this helps
Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:47, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Nikkimaria

Image captions should meet same standards for prose and verifiability as article text. Captions that aren't complete sentences shouldn't end in periods
File:Coat_of_arms_of_Malaysia.svg: FUR and licensing needs to be amended, as this isn't a logo
File:Location_Malaysia_ASEAN.svg: on what map or data source is this based?
WP:OVERLINK: don't link very common terms and don't link the same term multiple times, particularly not in close proximity
Did some copy-editing, feel free to revert. Suggest reading through the article looking for potential awkward or unclear phrases
Spell out "%" in article text
When was it taken by the Dutch?
Words like "sacking" and "rocked" are too colloquial - strive for an encyclopedic tone
Geography should appear earlier in the article, and you might consider making Flora and fauna a subsection of it
"The members of the 222-member" - repetitive phrasing, check for others
Overuse of "with + -ing" constructions
"While it improved the economic position of Bumiputras" - what is "it"?
ASEAN or the ASEAN? Bumiputras or bumiputras? Check for internal consistency
"Malaysia is made up of 13 states and 3 federal territories. These are divided between two regions, with 11 states and two federal territories on..." - why the variation in whether small numbers are spelled out?
Need more information on climate
"In 2010 the GDP per capita (PPP) was $414.400;&nbspbillion, the 3rd largest economy in ASEAN and 29th largest economy in the world."
Need more hyphens - see WP:HYPHEN. Also check dash use
Make sure you use the right word: for example, compulsory and compulsive are not the same thing
Make sure text is accessible to someone not familiar with Malaysian (or British) norms - for example, what is Year Six or Form Three?
Watch for overlap between sections. For example, you discuss life expectancy in both the main Demographics section and the Health care subsection
"It has been dominant in badminton, and the games were hosted in Kuala Lumpur in 1998" - these two clauses are not closely related, and shouldn't be in the same sentence
Citation formatting needs cleaning up. Make sure citations are formatted consistently and include all required information. Web citations need publishers and access dates, print citations and multi-page PDFs usually need page numbers, books need publishers and ISBNs where available.
Be consistent in whether you provide publisher locations
Publications should generally be italicized
FN 24: what kind of source is this?
Try to minimize your use of tertiary sources (like encyclopedias) and primary sources (like the constitution)
Make sure all sources are considered reliable. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:43, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]